


Sometimes it's Okay to Look Back, as Long as You Keep Moving Forward

by wherestheangel



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, He just calls em like he sees em, M/M, Okay so as this went on it just became sad, POV Steve Rogers, Post CATWS, Sam wilson is a precious angel, Theres some hope???, i suck at tags bye, im sorry, peggy be knowin, sad fluff?, the search for bucky begins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4679588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherestheangel/pseuds/wherestheangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based around an edit I made that gave me some inspo :)</p><p>http://castielslonelymountain.tumblr.com/post/127846258088/dont-imagine-steve-carrying-this-around-with-him</p><p>Literally just fuck me up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes it's Okay to Look Back, as Long as You Keep Moving Forward

He looks down at the beaten up photo. It has seen better days for sure, but he refuses to part with it. 

They had survived the ice together, as unlikely as that had been for either of them. He would not abandon the tattered thing.

Steve pushes that thought from his mind before the cold can resettle into his bones the way it sometimes tries to, when he isn't fast enough to stop it. 

He shifts in the wooden chair, readjusting his view of the black and white ink. He silently thanks God that this picture is not colored. He knows that it would be far too easy to sit there all day and stare at the blue eyes that would be staring slightly to the right of him. But in this form, an indeterminant gray, he can manage to tear himself away if he wants. 

The question is: does he want to? 

As a standard rule, yes he does. Steve would rather lose all sense of his past in a mission than dwell on it. 

But today, he feels nostalgia deeper than he has ever known. Perhaps it is because of what he is about to do, but he thinks it's more than that. 

The events of the past month have shaken him. Bucky is alive, tortured as he is and was. 

No, Steve thinks, he is not Bucky, not yet. The Winter Soldier still resides in that body, maimed and twisted into something the real Bucky could never be. Perhaps he will always remain, haunting the both of them until they learn to live with it.

He resolutely tries to ignore the hopeful part of him that sings "but he saved you, he broke through all of it to save you."

Bucky had always saved him.

Steve shakes his head, as if the physical action would help slow the whirlwind of thoughts that he has become all too familiar with. They threaten to swallow him up, and he decides to focus on the picture, tries to find a good memory attached to it. One he may just be able to lose himself in.

The one that comes to mind is not necessarily happy, but it manages to make him feel slightly better. 

Peggy had found him teary-eyed and upsettingly sober after... the train. He had been staring at a newspaper with the exact picture lying before him now, mangled as it had been with propaganda to boost morale. 

His sense of loss and regret had gone deeper than he could put into words, but she had known. She knew more about his feelings than Steve had himself. She knew how he had felt about Bucky, and had even known how Bucky had felt about him.

A pang of sadness resonates throughout him. Peggy is no longer with him either. He feels her absence deeply and wishes again that he could go back.

Focus Rogers, he thinks to himself, turning back towards his memory. 

They had spoken for quite some time that night, his eyes gravitating between her and the picture as the hours went on. 

It had not even been a particularly meaningful shot of them, just the first he had been able to find, he found himself professing to her as the light peeked into the dusty windows.

"Funny how insignificant things can suddenly become everything to us", she had replied.

He had nodded, glad to be understood.

He hadn't expected to find a beautiful copy of the photo in his quarters exactly three days later, mere hours before he stepped out for the last time until the 21st century. A smile had ripped across his face, courage surging in a way only Bucky had ever fostered.

He would face the day for his big-hearted friend who had always stood by him. He would face the day for the man that he had undeniably loved, and always would. That stupid kid from Brooklyn that had screamed " not without you," as everything had burned around him. 

And he would do it again. 

Steve suddenly realizes why looking at this candid today was different from every other time he has. He smiles slightly as hope refuels him finally. 

"You know, sometimes it's okay to look back, as long as you keep moving forward," Sam says from behind him. 

Steve has no idea how long he's been standing there, and he finds he doesn't care. He simply tucks the worn picture back into his bag and stands, clasping his hand on Sam's shoulder as he does.

"You ready?" Steve asks, eyebrow raised as if to challenge.

"Of course," Sam quips back, as expected, "it's not every day we get to chase ghost stories."

Steve disagrees privately. The Winter Soldier is a ghost, sure, but Bucky is pretty much everything. I'm not chasing a ghost, Steve thinks, I'm finally chasing life.


End file.
